A study led by The Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Crete in Greece has shed new light on the mystery of how our solar system formed in a cloud of gas and dust in space billions of years ago.

Lead researcher Dr Aris Tritsis from ANU said the study visualised the 3D shape of a star-forming cloud called Musca, which appears as a needle in the southern sky.

Musca lies hundreds of light years away from Earth. The large gas cloud, formed mainly of molecular hydrogen and dust, stretches about 27 light years across the plane of the sky, with a depth of about 20 light years and width up to a fraction of a light year. ...

Musca is surrounded by ordered hair-like structures called striations, which are produced by trapped waves of gas and dust caused by the global vibrations of the cloud.

The research team was able to determine the shape of Musca by analysing the spatial frequencies of these vibrations, which were then converted into ringing tones to reveal the ‘Song of Musca’. ...